A headline recently caught my eye — “Over 80% of workers are more likely to consider leaving the U.S., survey suggests”. Considering more than half the country has never even owned a passport, this claim immediately raises questions.

In his Fast Company article, Dan Schawbel argues the trend is a “reflection of mounting dissatisfaction with economic conditions at home and a growing belief that better opportunities may exist elsewhere”, citing research from Preply’s Language and Global Career Mobility Report.

Let’s start with the findings of that report. The research was conducted in “partnership” with Workplace Intelligence (we’ll come back to them), using a sample of 1,800 adults in the U.S, U.K, and Canada who “had studied a language or were interested in learning one.” People already inclined toward language learning are, almost by definition, more open to international mobility; this is not a representative slice of the workforce. That alone undermines the headline and narrative of the piece.

While Schawbel frames the results as evidence of uniquely American economic dissatisfaction, the report shows even higher interest in relocating among U.K. respondents (87% versus 84%), with Canada not far behind at 67%. Whatever this survey is capturing, it isn’t a U.S.-specific phenomenon.

He then pivots to proposing remedies for employers fearful of losing their workers: “investing in language learning and cross-cultural skills is becoming a strategic advantage. The Preply data shows overwhelming demand for these benefits. Language skills don’t just enable relocation, they enhance communication, leadership, and adaptability. Providing access to language training signals that a company is invested in long-term growth.”

Schawbel cites Preply’s proprietary survey to suggest an employment crisis … and then promotes their language training product as the solution.

It gets worse. Remember Workplace Intelligence, Preply’s partner in the survey? The “Founder and Managing Partner” is none other than … Dan Schawbel. According to their website, he’s the only employee. The Google listing for the business shows a carport in Massachusetts.

So Preply hires Schawbel to produce favorable data. Schawbel further “interprets” that data to write click-friendly articles for outlets like Fast Company and to sell Preply’s product, without clearly disclosing his role in the process. That content is further monetized and amplified by aggregators like Apple News.

Unfortunately, this is not a one-off occurrence. Schawbel partnered with Amazon on “Study finds that 74% of Millennial and Gen Z employees are likely to quit within the next year due to a lack of skills development opportunities”. He wrote this piece in support of AI agent platform WRITER: “Failing to Use AI at Work Could Cost You Your Job”. Workplace Intelligence is also frequently cited in similar articles by other writers.

According to Schawbel, he has also worked with Oracle, American Express, Logitech, Mercer, Indeed, Upwork, and more; and been published in Forbes, Fortune, TIME, The Economist, Quartz, The World Economic Forum, The Harvard Business Review and The Guardian. In 2018, Schwabel literally wrote the book on resisting technology in the workforce; now he writes doomy headlines cajoling workers to adopt AI tools from the companies who hire him.

Institutional Trust

The use of surveys in marketing is nothing new; companies have been engineering campaigns built around these claims since before Edward Bernays rebranded bacon. These findings are typically issued as a press release to the media, with independent journalists evaluating the claims and making the decision to write a piece — or not. The Workplace Intelligence model skips over that editorial step, with credulous outlets like Fast Company happy to publish easy content. It’s an ideal setup for the advertiser — why let a pesky journalist get between the campaign and the reader?

The closest thing we get to disclosure in the Preply article is in the “about the author” section at the bottom: “Dan Schawbel is a New York Times bestselling author, future of work expert, keynote speaker, and the Managing Partner of Workplace Intelligence, an award-winning thought leadership and research agency focused on the world of work.” This description of Workplace Intelligence is quite different from the one on their website: “We work with our clients to develop, publish, and promote content that generates publicity and marketing leads, and positions them as industry leaders.” Is Workplace Intelligence a “research agency”, or a “publicity and marketing” outfit?

Trust in the media is at rock-bottom, and tactics like Schawbel’s and Preply’s aren’t helping the matter. The transition to a paid news model makes their methods even more galling. Fast Company charges for their articles. Similarly, the Apple News subscription pays for these “news” stories. Imagine purchasing a novel, and then finding it’s full of subliminal advertising. You’d probably feel deceived, and want your money back. You (rightly) wouldn’t trust that publisher or author moving forward.

Readers are paying subscription fees for what is effectively sponsored lead-generation content presented as journalism. Schawbel may be a talented marketer, but he’s not acting as a data scientist or journalist, and it’s deceptive to suggest otherwise.

I reached out to Fast Company, Preply, and Schawbel for comment, and received no response as of publication.

He woke before dawn to a flurry of activity on his phone: it was war. “I remember the first few hours like they were yesterday — a flashbulb memory. I looked out the window and thought, I’m fucked.”

Mykhailo was living in a small town near one of the largest military bases in Ukraine; commuting an hour to school in Lviv. It was the kind of place where you could shout a friend’s name from the street and they would come down.

His father, a taxi driver, was away on the job. The rates spiked fifty-fold the day of the attack, earning him more than a month’s salary. He later picked up Mykhailo and told him they were going to his grandfather’s village, about twelve kilometers from the Polish border, to wait out the danger.

“When we got there, he told me I wasn’t staying. He had packed my suitcase. I was going to Poland.”

Mykhailo didn’t want to leave; he worried for his girlfriend. His bag was filled with ill-fitting clothes and lacked essentials. He negotiated for one more day.

He arrived at the Polish border better prepared, but alone — she had stayed behind. He was greeted by bitter cold and a line of thousands seeking refuge. “Women and children went first, but at sixteen I didn’t really count. I stood for nineteen hours, and by the end I was shaking uncontrollably. Then I waited another five hours on the Polish side for a bus.”

After days of couch surfing in Warsaw, Mykhailo found himself adrift. He could only check the news so many times. On a previous visit to the city with his father, they had come across a Steinway piano shop.

“They sell grand pianos — very different from the old, beat up ones I was used to. You can feel the difference in the travel of the keys, the sensitivity. They had rooms where you could pay to practice, but I didn’t want to beg. I asked if they knew somewhere I could play for free, and the manager offered to let me practice a few hours a day.”

Mykhailo was quickly accepted into a music school and found himself a smaller fish in a much larger pond. “In Ukraine, I was really good. Here, I was average.” He took to the Polish language quickly, though found difficulty in the finer points of pronunciation. “My Polish sounded Ukrainian, and soon my Ukrainian sounded Polish.”

In the summer of 2025, Mykhailo performed his music school recital in Warsaw. The program ran over an hour in a crowded concert hall; half-solo, half-duet. He played selections from Bach, Beethoven, Revutski, and, naturally, Chopin. It was a far cry from his musical past in Ukraine and his desperate first steps into Poland.

The performance was demanding: “You have to concentrate to play really well. I was stressed, but didn’t feel it at first — until I noticed my leg was shaking. I had to think about every note, what comes next, when to start building to a crescendo. You have to think ahead, because when you play max volume on the piano you can’t go higher.”

Despite Mykhailo’s humble self-appraisal, the judges evaluated him highly. His primary instructor, the Polish pianist Filip Wojciechowski, offered praise after the performance — an acknowledgment that he was keeping pace in a far more competitive field.

Classical music occupies a tortured place within Ukrainian culture. During the Soviet era, Russian composers were exalted and Ukrainians pushed aside. Shouting and physical abuse were common forms of instruction. Mykhailo recalls a female classmate trembling before practice; an elderly instructor punishing her missed notes with a ruler.

Mykhailo felt this diminished legacy acutely while growing up: “My friends didn’t understand the point of practicing for hours a day; there were few scholarships or opportunities.”

Still, he maintains a connection to his heritage. When asked about his favorite composers, he mentions Sergei Bortkiewicz, born in Kharkiv in 1877, who fled war and revolution, lost his home, and eventually rebuilt his life abroad. Another influence is Borys Lyatoshynsky, a Ukrainian composer whose career was shaped by the upheavals of the Second World War, and whose music resisted Soviet demands for “Socialist Realism.”

Mykhailo now studies psychology. He still plays classical piano, but has begun forming a band with friends, covering The Doors and Hendrix — a more relaxed kind of music, built on camaraderie over precision.

In the year since his recital, he hasn’t grown rusty. He sits at a Yamaha piano in David’s apartment, working through a passage before stopping midway, shaking out his hands, then starting again from the beginning.

His life in Warsaw has begun to take shape. His Polish girlfriend, Anna, also studies psychology, and works across visual mediums; from painting to interior design. She is a regular presence at his performances.

Mykhailo’s father serves in the Ukrainian military, something he speaks about with quiet pride. In recent months, he has helped organize a fundraiser to purchase equipment for his father’s unit — an effort David says is “very important and close to his heart.” He added that he admires how Mykhailo “supports his fellow citizens in every way he can.”

Asked about his current situation, his ambivalence is apparent: “I feel weird about the opportunities I have because of the war, and being in Warsaw. It breaks my heart that I am among the “lucky ones” and most Ukrainians aren’t. I am glad that I had this opportunity, but still, I experienced a lot of stress and had to overcome many problems along the way. I’ve minimized my losses.”

Recently, Mykhailo described a dream. He was on a train in Poland, trying to buy a ticket before an inspector arrived. What should have taken seconds stretched into minutes. He fumbled with the app. The language wouldn’t come. He tried to explain, unsure of what he was saying.

“I knew it was Polish,” he said. “But it didn’t feel right.”

We were met by a small oil lamp; one of a dozen unique illuminations spread across the nooks of the aged bar. Smoke lingered in the air, prompting Oskar to offer a Toscanello.

As we lit up, the Turkish bartender introduced himself; inviting our preferences before turning to his craft. Between the shadows, I could make out Victorian furniture dotting the space; patterned, tasseled, plush. Pockets of small conversation could be heard; an older, stately gentleman exited behind us with his equally-stately wife. “Jem” handed Oskar a cocktail of whiskey and, mango, of all things; a favorite of my oldest friend.

The clubs wouldn’t open for a few hours, and we were pleased with our discovery. One cocktail turned to two and then three; light banter to politics and then international affairs. Berlin, as European melting pot, seemed to invite such exchanges. Oskar’s Arabic studies, the best döner kebab, the war in Ukraine — the conversation flitted from one to the next.

Two young women attempted to enter; Jem turned them away, citing the late hour. As they backed out, he shrugged — “Not the right energy. They can be loud, filming TikToks …“ Sexist? Maybe. Wrong? Not necessarily.

Sufficiently lubricated and approaching midnight, we made our leave and headed off to the main attraction.

I hadn’t expected the Uber to drop us right at the door. I’d figured I’d have a moment to survey; to steel myself for the challenge. Instead I was greeted by the inscrutable face of the bouncer — a man whose sole vocation was to gate-keep the risqué club from vibe-killing tourists like myself.

In this moment of surprise, I defaulted to American, puppy-like enthusiasm: “Hi there! Is this Kit Kat Club?!” Without batting an eye: “Not tonight.” I shuffled away in my curated black outfit; weeks of mental role-play wasted.

Even on a Monday, there was another option. Tressor was only a few blocks away; an underground concrete bunker with significant history in the techno scene. I sheepishly apologized to Oskar for botching our first attempt, determined to project aloof confidence at our next stop.

The exterior matched my expectations; an imposing, industrial building loomed, dressed with red accent lighting. A small queue had formed by the door and another broad-shouldered man stood guard.

As we joined the line, his irritation was apparent. The party in front of us wore bulky coats; he explained they would need to check them. They stammered, switching between English and German; eliciting an eye-roll. He reluctantly let them in.

It was our turn. “Why are you here?” “Music.” “Don’t cause problems. Be respectful.” “Understood.” I stifled my relief as he whisked us inside. Stickers were placed over our phone cameras; other belongings stayed in a locker. Bass reverberated down the sloping concrete hallways as we made our way towards the music.

As the volume increased, the space widened into darkness, shrouded with fog. The occasional beam of light revealed the mass of bodies as I worked my way to the front.

Many cities have venues for dancing, their floors occupied by the most extroverted and intoxicated. As I neared the DJ, it became clear Tressor was something else. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, much less be impressed by or embarrassed for my fellow patrons. No cell service, no cameras, not even vision — the only performer stood behind the turntables.

There are few places left to fully live in the moment; a German techno club is one of them.

4 am rolled around quickly. We stumbled into the night — sweaty, tipsy, and hungry. One German delicacy had so far eluded us, and it appeared around the next corner. Sausage, french fries, spiced ketchup; a blend of salt and fat designed for this very moment. We waited in line for “currywurst”, alongside the other early morning revelers.

As our food arrived, nature called — inconveniently. I went off in search of a discreet alley, and was quickly intercepted by a homeless man. Did he speak English? German? Who can recall. I rarely carry cash, but he caught me on a good night — I passed him ten euros. I assumed it a handsome sum for the situation.

As I returned, Oskar hovered over my food. “A homeless guy tried to eat your currywurst!” Was it the same man? We think so.

Moral of the story: if you give a homeless man ten euros, he may round the corner and attempt to eat your currywurst.

Kanye West’s comeback is in full swing following a $33 million payday for a two-night performance at SoFi Stadium in LA, and was scheduled for a headliner position at the Wireless Festival before being blocked by the UK government. This comes after years of brazen antisemitism and allegations of predatory sexual behavior in the workplace; to say nothing of controlling his Kardashian stand-in wife, Bianca Censori.

Kanye has attributed his erratic and dangerous behavior to bipolar disorder; a plausible contributing factor. That said — should a man who sold swastika tee-shirts only a year ago be rewarded and platformed, particularly during a period of heightened violence and animosity towards Jews? Is Kanye’s revival a sign of more forgiving times, or increased tolerance of the “oldest hatred”?

The discourse surrounding Ye’s chaos has often been muddy and irrational. As he spiraled into antisemitic conspiracy in 2022, the left loudly declared that “mental illness does not cause racism”; a claim lacking any scientific basis. Psychosis and mental illness can lead to a wide array of abhorrent behaviors and delusions; why would racism be exempt? The implication is that racism is purely a moral defect, untouched by the distortions mental illness can produce.

Yet, in a post-October 7th world, Kanye is finding acceptance. The backlash from corporate sponsors was louder than that of Bluesky. Is this muted response due to his recent apology, or because disdain for Jews has become increasingly common among the “antiracist” crowd?

The statement from Wireless Festival promoter Marvin Blenn is telling:

“I am a deeply committed anti-fascist and have been all my adult life. I lived on a kibbutz for many months in the 1970’s that was attacked on October 7th, am pro Jew and the Jewish state, while being equally committed to a Palestinian state. What Ye has said in the past about Jews and Hitler is as abhorrent to me as it is to the Jewish community, the Prime Minister and others that have commented and – taking him at his word – to Ye now also. Ye’s music is played on commercial radio stations in this country. It is available via live streams and downloads in this country without comment or vitriol from anyone and he has a legal right to come into the country and to perform in this country.”

Blenn begins with a riff on “I have black friends!”, but make it Jews fifty years ago. As for Ye’s ‘past,’ he released the song ‘Heil Hitler’ in May of 2025. Blenn then pivots to Kanye’s commercial success … as if popularity is a moral defense of his terrible behavior.

By comparison, Kevin Spacey was “cancelled” at the height of stardom, nearly ten years ago — despite having never been convicted and prevailing in civil court against his accusers. He remains blacklisted, bouncing around Europe and the Middle East as a sideshow attraction. Forgiveness is on the table … for one particular transgression.

To be fair, Spacey has never admitted guilt. Many other celebrities and public figures have confessed their sins, only to remain in the wilderness. A road to redemption would be a positive for society, so long as it is equally applied. Kanye skipped the road entirely, teleporting to a sold-out stadium and a huge pile of cash. What does it say that 140,000 people, in one of the most liberal states, paid to support someone with such a recent track record of hate?

Only Kanye knows his soul — he has clearly been troubled for many years. His supporters and enablers have no such excuse. Their timing — and the speed of the shift — warrant close attention.

The case back comes off, revealing gears, synthetic rubies, and wound springs. Behind the dial sits a tiny machine built to resist the inevitable forces of friction and gravity.

Donovan Paradise points to the steady oscillation as he examines the movement through his loupe. “You see that balance wheel going back and forth like a heartbeat? It doesn’t matter that the most accurate watch is digital, with no moving parts. Mechanical watches are fighting physics, on a miniature level. There’s something about the strive for perfection that does something to us as human beings.”

Paradise Time Service sits in an unassuming strip mall on the north side of Fort Wayne. Foot traffic is steady — a trickle of largely senior customers in need of $15 battery swaps. Breaking the rhythm, a high-end watch dealer arrives with a vintage Omega for service before listing it for sale. Donovan jokes he should have a desk there — his “second home.”

A Rolex Datejust sits on the timegrapher, its accuracy measured before being shipped back to its owner in Alabama. “This city is not a huge market. It’s big enough that we can operate out of it, but supplement with things from around the country. Thankfully, we’ve had a niche with vintage chronographs, and Omega more specifically.”

Donovan operates in rarified air — one of roughly three hundred watchmakers nationwide to hold the CW21 certification from the American Watchmakers–Clockmakers Institute. “To have a Rolex account, you had to be a CW21-certified watchmaker,” he explains. “It’s a grueling exam, spread across three days. It consists of written theory and a hands-on mechanical, servicing a 7750 chronograph. Of course, they introduced all kinds of errors. There was a micromechanics portion where you had to service a 6497 basic manual line pocket watch size, but we had to cut the balance staff out, take the measurements, install a new staff, do poising, dynamic poising, truing, etc. There’s something like an 80% failure rate.”

Although not from a family of watchmakers, Donovan came by his fascination with mechanics honestly. “My father was a toolmaker, my grandfather was a toolmaker, my great-grandfather was a toolmaker. I worked for them for four years and decided I wasn’t going to stay there forever. I really liked mechanical things, and I really liked making small parts.”

He found his way to horology through Watchmaking, George Daniels’ landmark book on building a mechanical watch entirely by hand. Daniels, regarded as one of the greatest watchmakers of the modern era, helped revive interest in handmade mechanical watches at the highest level. “I wasn’t somebody who got into watches for the looks,” Donovan says. “I wasn’t interested in the Speedmaster because of the moon landing.”

Though brand prestige may not be Donovan’s primary motivation, he doesn’t ignore the pull of history and lineage while working on these tiny, improbable machines. “A guy brought in a pocket watch — I think it was a Waltham, could have been an Elgin — from the late 1800s. His great-great-grandfather was the tribal chief of a Native American tribe in the area. That watch was present at negotiations with the U.S. government to establish their reservation. It was an artifact of his people from a significant moment in their history. When I handed it back to him and he saw it run for the first time, it was emotional. I felt honored that I got to be a part of that.”

Quartz watches solved many of the challenges of timekeeping decades ago. Smartwatches eliminated them entirely. Yet mechanical watches persist, sometimes requiring intervention beyond routine service.

“Fabricating parts can be difficult,” Donovan says. “Often you don’t know exactly what grade of steel or brass the original manufacturer used. If the material is too soft, it will wear prematurely. Too hard, and it will cause wear to other components. There’s experimentation. There’s delicacy in getting the fit right. At any stage, it can go wrong. You can make it all the way to the end — a week and a half in — get the temper wrong, and you’re starting over. It brings me back to my machining background, which I absolutely adore. Those are the most challenging, but also the most rewarding.”

“Challenging, but rewarding” could be a mantra for anyone who cares for one of these machines. Mechanical watches demand regular service. They must be wound, positioned carefully at rest, their crystals polished, their movements cleaned and adjusted. The responsibilities are real, but they haven’t deterred renewed interest.

“We saw, especially during COVID, a huge uptick in vintage chronographs,” Donovan says. “We’re also seeing an increase in the higher-end market.”

On the bench, the balance wheel continues to spin, maintaining its fragile equilibrium. Donovan steps away to greet a customer looking for a new band. After a brief exchange and leather selection, he returns, his attention narrowing once again to the movement.

He makes a small adjustment and watches as it steadies. The oscillation continues.

Tests of FM transmitters sold and shipped by Amazon show signal strength far exceeding FCC Part 15 limits — in some cases capable of broadcasting for miles, despite being marketed as compliant consumer devices.

You may be familiar with the FM transmitters commonly used to broadcast music around a home or car; these innocuous devices have been around for decades. They operate under the FCC’s Part 15 exemption for low-power radio — no license required.

These limits exist because radio spectrum is finite. Excessively powerful transmitters can overwhelm licensed broadcasts and interfere with critical communications, including aviation, emergency services, and public radio. Part 15 allows personal use while preventing disruption of the broader spectrum.

However, a recent breed of inexpensive, high-power transmitters have cropped up from Chinese manufacturers, far exceeding the strength limits of the Part 15 exemption. The sub-$100 Retekess TR508 advertises nearly 1000ft of range — 5x the distance of a typical Part 15 transmitter. In my testing, the device reached a range of one mile, even in an urban setting.

The Amazon Retekess listing claims legal operation and compliance, listing a real FCC identification number. If this device is breaking the law, how did it obtain certification?

An FCC ID does not signify blanket legality. It indicates that a device, in a specific configuration, was tested and found compliant under laboratory conditions. Crucially, manufacturers control the configuration submitted for testing.

Buried within a settings menu, the TR508 features a “low power” mode that reduces its range to roughly 200 feet — consistent with Part 15 limits. In other words, the device can operate legally, but only if manually configured to do so.

Neither Amazon’s product listing nor the user manual disclose this distinction. The transmitter is advertised as both extended-range and FCC-compliant, yet ships by default in a high-power configuration that exceeds Part 15 limits. As a result, thousands of customers may be operating the device unlawfully without realizing it.

When reached for comment, Retekess shifted regulatory responsibility to their supplier and halted shipments of the device: “Our product’s FCC certification is provided by our supplier. After receiving your email, we immediately contacted our compliance department to address this issue … Regarding current stock, we have informed the supplier that we will return all stock and request that they must arrange to conduct all necessary testing. We have also stopped sending new inventory to the warehouse.”

Retekess isn’t alone — there are even more egregious offenders currently available from Amazon. The $180 NIORFNIO 15W Fm Transmitter advertises up to 2.5 miles of range while claiming legal FCC operation.

Though the FCC has not aggressively pursued the use of these devices so far, the stakes are real. The recent PIRATE Act stiffens the penalties for violating the rules; up to $120,000 per day. An unlicensed station out of New Jersey recently earned itself a nearly $1 million fine.

As transmitter capability becomes cheaper and more accessible, a regulatory gray market has emerged — with manufacturers exploiting technical loopholes, platforms distributing the devices, and consumers left unaware of the legal risks.

Amazon was notified of the compliance concerns and the manufacturer’s shipment halt. As of publication, the company has removed listings for Retekess transmitters. However, other, more powerful units from different manufacturers remain available for sale.

Influencer and investor Gary “Gary Vee” Vaynerchuk argues social media and AI are tools for empowerment, while lackadaisical parenting — even the decline of corporal punishment — is to blame for society’s problems. It’s a convenient frame from someone who built his wealth and reputation on the platforms he now casts as the solution.

In a recent interview, Vaynerchuk cites “40 years” of lax parenting to explain rising rates of mental illness, in defense of social media. But his timeline doesn’t fit the data. A large national study found that anxiety increased meaningfully from 2008 to 2018, especially among young adults. If the culprit is pre-millennium “participation trophy” culture, why do anxiety trends inflect so sharply in the same era social media becomes ubiquitous?

Let’s look at one of the companies Vaynerchuk has invested in and promoted: Meta. They’re currently facing multiple lawsuits alleging their platforms contribute to harm among minors. Internal documents unsealed by a judge in ongoing litigation reveal that Meta’s own researchers found teens reported improvements in well-being after reducing or stopping use.

Other internal presentations described links between platform use and negative outcomes including sleep disruption, anxiety, and depression. In at least one instance, researchers compared Instagram use to drug addiction. Plaintiffs also allege that Meta scaled back internal studies after identifying troubling findings. The research on the effects of social media on mental health is young, but the red flags are there.

However, we have a much longer track record of evidence regarding one of Vaynerchuk’s solutions — “whooping” children. According to the World Health Organization, “children exposed to corporal punishment are, on average, 24% less likely to be developmentally on track compared to peers who are not exposed. The mental health toll is equally severe. Children subjected to corporal punishment face increased risks of anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and emotional instability.”

Vaynerchuk’s playbook is familiar — the institutions which benefit him get a pass, while blame is laid at the feet of “personal responsibility”. We’ve seen the same arguments from the alcohol, tobacco, and gambling industries.

If Vaynerchuk’s account of the past is suspect, his vision of the future is even more so. In the same interview, he predicts the benefits of AI: “There’s a scenario where we go to a four-day work week because of efficiencies and subsidies from the biggest winners in AI … What about all the people that might get inspired by this interview, and get a job in three years that pays them three times more that they’re happy about, because they took the AI surfboard instead of putting their head in the sand?”

Have past productivity gains in the labor force resulted in commensurately increased leisure time or pay? According to the Economic Policy Institute, the answer is no. Workers are 90% more productive than they were in 1979, yet only make 33% more. Hours worked remain flat since the mid 20th century.

Why would AI be any different? The technological efficiencies haven’t benefited workers so far. Are we to believe the enormous capital investment in AI is to achieve higher pay and days off? That assumption is difficult to reconcile with history.

Investors are looking for a return on their money, and they’re not shy about their expectations. Silicon Valley is promising an economy with reduced or even eliminated labor costs — a far cry from Vaynerchuk’s theoretical tripled salaries. Some workers will benefit during a market shift; many more will lose.

It’s easier to blame parents than to interrogate troubling systemic issues — especially while profiting from those systems. Investors and tech evangelists like Gary Vaynerchuk have strong incentives to emphasize personal responsibility over platform design or capital allocation.

The evidence on corporal punishment is clear. The evidence on social media is far from reassuring. Before embracing a backwards nostalgia for harsher discipline, we should be honest about who benefits from that framing — and who bears the consequences.

The Great Depression was the largest economic calamity of the 20th century, causing widespread unemployment, poverty, and suffering. US GDP fell by a third from 1929-1933, with compounding effects for the following decade. Over those four years alone, cumulative lost output was roughly equivalent to an entire year of pre-crisis GDP.

It may surprise, then, that Mark Gongloff, an opinion editor and columnist at Bloomberg, claims we have recently “suffered” double those losses to climate change via disaster cleanup, increased insurance premiums, and “other expenses”. In his piece “Ignoring a $7 Trillion Financial Disaster Won’t Make It Go Away”, Gongloff writes “climate change is already twice as painful economically as the Great Depression”.

Are we so oblivious to economic distress, or is he playing games with the rhetoric? The Depression announced itself through mass unemployment, breadlines, and visible deprivation. The absence of comparable signals today is not a mystery — it is evidence that the comparison fails a basic reality check.

Gongloff cites a twelve-year cost of climate change at $6.6 trillion, comparing it to a $3.3 trillion inflation-adjusted estimate of Great Depression losses over a similar span.

To call these numbers misleading would be an understatement. The GDP-normalized equivalent loss of the Great Depression would correspond to roughly $25–30 trillion today in foregone production. By contrast, his $6.6 trillion climate figure comes from an economy that is approximately 13–17 times larger than it was in 1929 in real GDP.

On a like-for-like basis, two “Great Depressions” would conservatively imply losses of $50–60 trillion in today’s dollars — an order of magnitude larger than the climate estimate he invokes. In another context, it would be akin to claiming the United States and Brazil would suffer equally from a $6.6 trillion loss, despite their vastly different economic scales.

The same methodology also implies that the Great Recession was far more economically “painful” than the Great Depression or climate change — but again only if relative economic scale is ignored. That implication alone should give readers pause.

According to Gongloff’s own graph, climate change is presented as roughly half as costly as the Great Recession, a comparison that receives far less emphasis. The choice of comparator, rather than the consistency of the logic, appears to be doing much of the rhetorical work.

Diving deeper into the cited Bloomberg Intelligence report, the estimated economic cost of climate change from 2000–2025 is approximately $7.7 trillion — equivalent to 36% of total U.S. GDP growth over that period. Spread across a quarter century, that represents a long-run drag, not a sudden collapse in output. Even taken at face value, it amounts to roughly one-third of the GDP-normalized cost of a single Great Depression.

The Depression was not catastrophic because of a large cumulative dollar figure; it was catastrophic because output collapsed relative to the size of the economy, triggering mass unemployment and systemic distress. Treating it as a benchmark for cumulative climate costs confuses fundamentally different economic events.

Gongloff published this story at a major financial news institution six months ago without substantive pushback. He has written subsequent articles citing this misleading comparison, most recently “The Fed Is Heading for an F on a $7 Trillion Test”.

What does it say that this faulty equivalence has gone unchallenged? As Trump and the Fed crack down on climate change spending and regulation, climate-policy advocates are further incentivized to prioritize narrative over fact.

It’s not surprising that they would adopt an alarmist tone; a sense of urgency is key to the agenda. But when the economic harm is so profoundly overstated, it can only have the opposite of the intended effect.

This is the same overreach which has plagued the media class for the past decade and led to a disastrous loss of trust among the public. Yes, Gongloff wrote an opinion piece — but these numbers and their interpretation were not presented as opinion but as empirical evidence.

Facts cannot continue to be distorted in favor of “moral clarity” on climate change or other partisan darlings. If we’re serious about moving the needle on these issues, we need to treat our audiences seriously.

Bloomberg Opinion and columnist Mark Gongloff were contacted for comment but did not respond prior to publication.

Part film, part visual essay, 1967’s 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her parallels the lives of suburban prostitutes with the cold, industrial progress of modernizing Paris. Rife with consumerist imagery, Godard suggests both his characters and city are selling their souls in pursuit of an aspirational and commodified lifestyle.

Protagonist(?) Juliette spends her days attending to Johns and indulging in shopping and beautification, before retreating to her high-rise on the outskirts of the city. Godard’s literal voice accompanies her across this vain existence, musing about politics, consciousness, and r’aison d’être. The final shot of the film sees the city recreated out of carefully-arranged consumer goods.

Over fifty years later, Paris retains her identity — apart from the smoking ban, anyway. Baguettes walk the streets; coffee is indulged at a leisurely-pace; fashionable moviegoers spill out of Christine Cinema into the late-afternoon light. Skyscrapers refuse to take over the Parisian skyline; billboards remain largely absent. It’s still a city built as monument to living, rather than productivity.

Would Godard have been satisfied? Hard to say. He withdrew from mainstream society at the end of the 60’s, disgusted by capitalism and the bourgeois complacency of French life.

Within the modern American context, Godard’s once-radical critique reads as nostalgic, maybe even enviable. Prostitution in exchange for luxury? We might label that empowerment. Industrial jobs providing for soulless suburban living? Not far from a 2024 campaign promise.

Godard couldn’t have dreamt of the growing technoligarchy, or of how the state would subsidize AI data centers to put people out of work. He feared commoditization, but couldn’t have predicted how the internet would drive users to self-commoditize, transforming themselves into brands.

He once referred to America as the “heart of the system”, with France as “one of its provinces”. The Paris of today may be safe from his worst fears, but was the underlying unease justified, if premature? What will our current moment look like, a half-century on?

Perhaps the AI bubble will burst, causing economic calamity but ultimately leading a retreat into twentieth century-style capitalism. Or, maybe Silicon Valley will succeed in creating the machine God, resulting in unprecedented inequality and societal upheaval.

Either way, it’s disquieting to read a dystopian critique as small comfort. The anxieties of history may not all come to pass, but their paranoia lingers in uneasy times. For now — sip that Beaujolais, wander a ruelle pavée, and hope for the best.

Muskrats can hold their breath for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes under the surface, in the quiet; at least partially removed from the world. I imagine a gentle sensory deprivation; the hum of the forest falling away as the critter submerges. I look on with envy.

Over the past week, the cacophony of our societal decline reached a fever pitch. I don’t need to spell out the how or why; the writing is on the wall — every wall. It’s beamed into our moments by our acquaintances, our friends, the vestiges of talking heads.

The forest doesn’t have an app. Your favorite curvy road doesn’t have an agenda. That album from high school won’t shift into something sinister. We may not be able to hide beneath the water, but we have a measure of control and agency. The institutions aren’t going to save us; we can only save ourselves.

Maybe COVID was practice for a mental contagion, with nature and sourdough as treatment. Disconnection and solitude can be trying in good times. In times like these, they’re survival.

Did you see that new iPhone? It’s so thin.

The pedestrian square — novel for traffic-weary American tourists. A space for festivities, for espresso, for conversation; free of smog and horns. As we saddled up to the cafe on the corner, a congregation grew in the center of the space.

I wondered aloud about the spectacle we were about to witness; perhaps Italy had emerged victorious in a football match? Maybe some kind of street performance was about to begin? I readied my camera, preparing to capture la vita di strada.

It became clear I’d misread the situation. The attire was black, the crowd dotted with young, morose faces; at odds with the idyllic Bari afternoon. “A girl was killed in a traffic accident” our waiter shared, with a slight grimace.

Though Italian funerals are typically public affairs, I couldn’t help but wince at our accidental intrusion. A Peroni break, or an entire vacation, felt frivolous and hollow surrounded by such sadness.

I wonder about this girl, unnamed to me. What might her life have been; what places would she have gone? How might she have spent this sun-soaked afternoon? What does it mean to sit next to grief, yet to be removed from it?

Later that evening, Oskar and I stumbled back into the same square. Young boys scampered mischievously across the stone, boxes in hand. With a bang, showers of sparks erupted to cheers — Italy had won a football match.

I left my camera hanging at my side.

Peperone crusco — a sweet chili, dried in the sun, and flash fried in olive oil. It’s crisp, light, and mild; transformed from vegetable to arid snack. It’s a dish that speaks more to process than product; a ghost of the original pepper.

The caves of Matera hold the designation of being the oldest continually inhabited settlement in the world, dating back nine thousand years. As we clambered up and down the twisting cobblestone paths, I ran the numbers: average lifespan of thirty years … nearly three hundred generations. Countless families, marriages, lives; layered atop one another, leaving behind little more than the rocky shell of this ancient place.

Elish got it wrong; there’s more than enough time to die here. I toast Oskar (saluti) as we look out over the basin of the city, one spritz away from heartburn. The shadows creep upward, chasing the light to the tips of the buildings. The daytrippers retreat to their buses as Matera descends into dusk.

Not every Airbnb has a jacuzzi inside a cave, but this one does. The gravitas falters as the shower hose whips around, nearly striking me as it sprays water across the irregular stone walls. I wrestle it into submission, my suave Bond fantasy taking a serious hit — the soak more shaken than stirred.

As morning rises, so does this iteration of the city. Laundry dries itself on balconies; alleycats follow and befriend the occasional photojournalist. Yet it feels like set dressing — a footnote to the countless chapters written here. A monument less alive than remembered, more echoes than moments.

Matera is a place to mourn, to taste the essence of what once was — stone, structure, and the weight of history. From the plaza above it may seem a touristy photo op, yet the long shadows engulf. Whether its lesson in transience strikes as consolation or unease depends on you.

After a parade of meticulously-crafted yakiniku dishes, I first encountered the Ayu “Sweetfish”. Prepared as a confit, the chef filleted the small fish before mashing the head, bones, and organs into steaming rice. He placed the bowl in front of me, alongside dark miso soup.

I’m no prude — a skewer of chicken hearts (yakitori) is welcome, at least after a few beers. The chef beamed as I took my first bites, beginning with the flesh on top. True to its name, the Ayu fillet was sweet and mild; reminiscent of the lake perch we eat at home.

As I dug into the rice, I was consumed by intense bitterness. Later I learned the Ayu feed on river algae rich in acerbic compounds. In Japan, this nigami is prized as the pure taste of summer streams. Not even black coffee or strong amaro could have prepared me for the sharp, vegetal, inescapable bitterness.

There was little room to hide; I was the only patron at the counter. I politely worked through the dish, though my hesitance did not go unnoticed. Lying through my teeth, I proclaimed the dish umai; blaming my small stomach for the uneaten delicacy.

In an act of misguided kindness, the chef shaped the leftovers into onigiri to take for the road. After thanking the staff for the (mostly) delicious meal, I walked out with my bag of shame, heading towards my hotel in Shin-Okubo.

As I shuffled through the Tokyo twilight, I debated the most respectful way to rid myself of the rice balls. Surely no Japanese person would accept them from a random foreigner. Throwing them in the trash struck me as adding shio to the cultural wound. While pondering, I heard a distressed noise from a nearby bush.

Upon investigation, a calico cat revealed itself. While seemingly in decent condition, the feline projected the saddest little noises. Unmei datta, I thought — fate! As I tried to unwrap the food, my new friend snatched it from my hand, dragging it into the safety of the brush.

Cats, as it turns out, lack the receptors to taste bitterness. What for me was a harrowing trial was, for the neko, nothing more than warm fish, rice, and a full belly. Appreciation, revulsion, obliviousness — a reminder that taste, like experience, is always contextual. Though our palates may be at odds, the cat and I ended our days similarly — fed, satisfied, and without leftovers.